Best Time to Visit Pakistan

Pakistan is not one climate. Karachi and Skardu are the same country and share almost no weather, and the question people mean when they ask this is nearly always about the mountains. So this page is about the north — Gilgit-Baltistan, Hunza, Skardu, and the passes that decide whether an itinerary is possible at all.

Month by month

If you can pick any month, pick September

It is the month we would choose ourselves and the one we push people towards whenever their dates are flexible. Deosai and Khunjerab are still open. Pakistani school holidays have finished, so the hotels that were full in July have rooms and the Karakoram Highway is not carrying holiday traffic. And the haze that softens the mountains through high summer has gone — Rakaposhi and Nanga Parbat look in September the way they look in photographs.

The trade-off is nights. September is cold at altitude and October colder, and a trip that includes Deosai or a night in Khaplu needs warmer clothing than the daytime temperature suggests.

April, and the blossom problem

Hunza's cherry and apricot blossom is the most famous fortnight in Pakistani tourism, and the honest difficulty is that it is a fortnight, not a season, and it moves. A mild winter brings it forward; a long one pushes it back. Nobody, including us, can tell you in January exactly which two weeks of April it will be.

What that means practically: book the accommodation early and hold the dates loosely, and understand that the high country is not yet in play — Deosai is under snow and Khunjerab is usually shut. April is a valley trip. Our Hunza seasonality guide goes into that valley in more detail.

If you are coming to trek, the trek picks the month

High glacier routes run in July and August and that is close to the whole of it. Concordia and K2 Base Camp are not a shoulder-season proposition, and the permits are dated, so the paperwork and the snow have to agree with each other. If a trek is the reason for the trip, fix those dates first and arrange the rest of the itinerary around them — the reverse order is how people end up with a permit for a week the route is not walkable. The NOC and permits page explains why that timeline is the constraint.

Winter is real, but it is a second visit

Hunza under snow, with almost nobody in it, is one of the more extraordinary things in this country. Naltar and Malam Jabba have skiing. But Deosai and Khunjerab are shut, the Skardu flight is at the mercy of the weather, and the road alternative is a long winter drive. We are happy to run winter trips and we say the same thing to everyone who asks about one: come in the season first, then come back in January knowing what you are looking at.

Tell us the window you can travel in and we will tell you honestly what is open in it — including when the answer is "move your dates by three weeks". Message +92 371 5303587, or read the visa page first if you have not started that yet, because it is the step with the longest lead time after permits.